Death of a friend
by lolaf
Summary: Batman reflects on the death of his old nemesis and friend and the odd relationship they shared. Warning contains spoilers for Arkham City. Rated Teen just in case.


The day I lost him, was the day my world crashed down. I soon came to see that without his outrageous, horrible, homicidal plans my nightly escapades were empty. I kept telling myself that I was glad he was gone because it meant he would never hurt any ever again. My job of saving the populous from that madman was over and I noticed a rapid decline in incidents. Sure there were still people needed saving, I mean there were still other mad men who stalked that city. Clay face, Penguin, two face you name it they were still intent on running rampant through Gotham, I even heard that they were in the middle of a war to see who would rule the crime of Gotham now that he was gone…

But I came to realize that, that maniac of a circus reject was the one I spent most of my time fighting. I was left with many night alone, locked in my study, alone with my thoughts. Which turned out to be a slow form of suicide. I was left to reflect, on the way he had acted. His homicidal raving, his thirst for blood in what seemed only to be an attempt to draw me out. The way he had been slowly getting sicker and sicker, the way it had hurt me to see him becoming so weak. The way he had, had a real passion for what he did, even if it had been causing wide spread mayhem. The way he had treated Harley…

Harley, I still can't get the image of her face out of my head. The pure pain and torture in her eyes as I carried his lifeless body out of that theater. I never saw her again… if she's still involved in the crime life of this city she's buried herself so deep that I doubt I will ever see her face again. I hope she moved on… though I doubt it, she's probably in some shadowy corner of her old lover's house planning her revenge never to see the light of day again.

I can't seem forget the way he died, right there in front of me, as his laughs gave way to hacking coughs, which gave way to gasps as he struggled to hold onto his last breath, no longer able to laugh until he finally gave into the sickness and died just the way he would have wanted to. Smiling and having doomed Gotham.

I will never forget the weight of his body in my arms as I carried him out of that city, his city.

He had always been so skinny, and yet he felt like he weighted nearly a ton. Maybe it was my heart that weighted a ton.

I have to give him credit; he did what he wanted because it made him happy, in a sick twisted way. I guess in a way he achieved the what everyone wants. Joy out of what you do. It's a shame he had to go to such drastic ends to do so.

Maybe it was wrong that out of all the people who died in that wretched city, his death was the one that struck me the most. In my eyes I had turned into the one person I was fighting against… a killer. I couldn't save him, so I ended up killing him. By accident or not, I have a hard time forgiving myself. I even…

I even managed to forgive him for all that he had done. Something I'm not proud of. But in my grief I found everything forgivable. I blamed myself for his death, and myself for all of his actions in the past. Without me, he would never have existed in the first place, and without me… he would never have died.

We shared a strange bond, one that I'm still attempting to unravel. All I can say is that he seemed to need me… he needed me to come and attempt to stop him. Maybe it gave him a sick joy to see how far he could push me… or maybe it was that he needed to know there was still a spec of humanity in this city. Whatever the reason he needed me to come when he beckoned… and I, I needed to answer his calls. I needed to protect the city, stop him and I needed to try and save him. Out of all the maniacs I have faced he still seemed like the most human to me. I will never know his back story and yet I knew all I need to know.

Those times that he was in mortal danger he would call out to me and I would see that inside of him there was a tiny sliver of humanity in him. No matter what he had done, I could never let him die… or kill him myself.

To him life had seemed a joke, he had told me once. Though in much different terms.

"I just want to bring down your grim façade and for once, let you see the world as I see it. Giggling in a corner and bleeding."

Aside from the violence he seemed to have the right idea, and in a way he was both the best man I knew and the worse. He was also one of the smartest men I knew even if his philosophy was more than a bit flawed.

So let this stand as a memoriam of the crown prince of crime, so that none may commit the same mistakes he did, or the ones I did.


End file.
